St Thomas old bridges scare residents, challenge firefighters

It has been nearly two years since the National Works Agency (NWA) said that the Llandewey Bridge was defective and announced plans to replace it. The structure has a gaping hole in the floor and poses great risk to pedestrians and motorists alike.

A few miles north of that bridge is the community of Ramble. That bridge, which spans the Yallahs River, has its problems too. Broken floorboards are a recurring problem and residents are fed up.

They say they have made repeated calls to mend the problem before it results in fatality.

"You think is love we love being on the media?" asked Neriga Morgan, a resident of Ramble who lives metres away from the old structure. "I live right next door so I always see the things that happen. One time a little girl even fell through the board, people buck dem toe, sprain dem foot."

"Is there a long-term thing that can be done to this bridge? I don't have much idea on how these things work, but this is like a feeding tree. Everytime the board rotten, they come and change it and they just keep on doing that over and over," she said.

Rohan Hall, a taxi operator who traverses the shaky wooden bridge multiple times daily, admitted that he is often fearful for the safety of himself and his passengers.

"This bridge deh here from bout inna the 80s and every two years dem change it and put a different board and is the same situation. Sometimes it get worse. Right now under the bottom rotten out. The other day dem come fix half and leave the rest. It needs to be fixed. We can't take it nuh more. Mi have to drive cross it every day. It really scary for the children dem, especially when a school time. All me fraid because when the board rotten bad, sometimes mi car just drop down inna it," he said.

The cabbie said that each time the panels are replaced, heavy units navigate the unstable structure causing additional damage.

The bridge was built to facilitate up to 12 tons. Just recently, firefighters decided against driving on the bridge.

They used an alternate route, via Cedar Valley, and by the time they got to Windsor Forest, the community from which a distress call came, a house had been burnt flat.

Horace Thomas, deputy superintendent in charge of operations at the St Thomas Fire Brigade, says some of the bridges in the parish cannot accommodate the fire trucks.

"The bridges in Easington, Llandewey and Ramble area are not rated as such to allow our units to traverse them. Our units have a laden weight of 18 tons and those bridges have a load limit of 12 tons, hence we would need to drive around. So a journey that could take us 30 to 35 minutes if we were able to traverse the bridge, took us approximately three hours going the longer route," Thomas said.

Thomas said that while other trucks laden with aggregate use the bridges, the Jamaica Fire Brigade would not traverse a channel that is not weighted for the units.

According to him, "That would be most irresponsible on our part. Where fire is concerned, our ability to respond in an effective way is being undermined by the bridge not being able to carry the unit across."

"Certainly we would want the relevant authorities to look at the tonnage capacity of the bridges to allow us to respond in a more effective manner as opposed to going around," he added.

Stephen Shaw, communications manager at the NWA, said repair work is slated to be done on the Ramble bridge.

"We are going to be actioning some work there in short order, recognising that we had only done a half of the bridge a few months ago. We recognise that particular need," he said.

Regarding the weight capacity of the bridges, Shaw said "That is something that will not change in the short term because the fix for that is a complete replacement of the current bridge. So until the bridge is replaced, the weight restriction will obtain".